Slow startup and shutdown after permission repair.

Any helpful input would be greatly appreciated.


A while back I cloned a new Momentus XT, installed it and my Mini ran great. Startups and shutdowns were fast. Recently, after performing a permission repair, startups an shutdowns became noticeably slower. Logins and logouts are still fast as usual, thankfully. I also upgraded the XT firmware to SD24 a while back. I would have never thought that my system performance would suffer from running permission repair.

I tried:
resetting the pram
resetting smc
ran fsck in single user mode
verified startup disk



I was going to try to archive and re-install but I found out Apple discontinued it for Snow Leopard. (Why Apple???? this whole experience has been like Microsoft)

If I cannot remedy the issue I was thinking of doing a Time Machine backup of user settings. Will this restore my pop email accounts?

I know if the startup disk is not selected properly, startup time can suffer. One thing I think is weird is the sata info from system profiler: what is the volume disk0s1 with a size of 209.7 MB?

NVidia MCP89 AHCI:

Vendor: NVidia
Product: MCP89 AHCI
Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit
Description: AHCI Version 1.30 Supported

ST95005620AS:

Capacity: 500.11 GB (500,107,862,016 bytes)
Model: ST95005620AS
Revision: SD24
Serial Number: --------
Native Command Queuing: Yes
Queue Depth: 32
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Rotational Rate: 7200
Medium Type: Rotational
Bay Name: Lower
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
Volumes:
Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
Writable: Yes
BSD Name: disk0s1
HDD:
Capacity: 499.76 GB (499,763,888,128 bytes)
Available: 400.31 GB (400,314,204,160 bytes)
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s2
Mount Point: /

If I have to do a re-install then so be it. My main concern is is getting all my user files and pop email back after I do it. I have never used Time Machine; only Carbon Copy Cloner on a regular basis.

 

I don't recall I said anything negative about time machine. I never included TM in my mini-rant.

Back to my OP, it's too bad this all too common condition occurs after performing permission repair. To make matters worse, from what I have found reading some MR posts and posts on other sites, there seems to be no real solution to the problem other than re-installing the operating system. Archive and install used to be a nice tool but Apple dropped it for Snow Leopard. In fairness to Apple, perhaps it caused more issues than it solved.

Perhaps the genius bar at one of my local Apple stores can shed some light on this problem that seems to rear its ugly head every so often in the mac community.

 

Let me clear up what I meant; when this issue occurs it is common for the resolution to be nothing less than a complete re-install. Thankfully it is not a very common problem or Apple would take a lot of heat. Unfortunately, for the unlucky recipients of this problem, common answer for the problem can be a costly one.

 

*Sighs*
I was optimistic someone might have an idea what to do but the common solution appears to be a complete reinstall. With archive and install absent from SL this is a real time waster to say the least. There is another forum I'm going to check and may also stop at a genius bar as well. If I find any useful information I will be sure to post at MR and share anything I find out.

 

Update

I cannot explain it but my reboots/startups suddenly became quicker, to the speed before something happened after a permission repair. They are around 30-31 seconds vs. 45-50 seconds when things went awry. I have looked through console but cannot seem to find anything obvious. Oh well, I guess. It bugs me I cannot find the cause but at least it seems back to normal. Btw, it went back before the SL 10.6.7 update.

If I happen to discover the cause of what happened I will be sure to come back and post the finding.